1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to programs for improving the lifestyle of consumers through medical, safety, and health education; and more particularly, to a system and process for providing health information and assistance, in an entertaining manner, through online gaming.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most members of the general public would benefit from a better overall understanding of health and medicine. With adequate health education, patients are able to maintain a healthy lifestyle and deal more effectively with diseases and illnesses. Presently, print literature, books, magazines, and online health websites provide the consumer with information on a variety of health topics and issues. Nevertheless, many individuals remain uninformed and continue to lead unhealthy lifestyles characterized by obesity, drug addiction, smoking and unsafe driving practices.
Patients need to be motivated and supported, in a manner which is psychologically appealing, to achieve better medical management, safety, and health maintenance. There exists a need for an interactive, multimedia, entertaining system and method that will provide effective health education by creating enthusiasm for self-instruction. Such a gaming system must ensure learning by rewarding correct responses and providing further instruction when learning has not taken place. To create maximum motivation, there exists a need for games of this kind which appeal to specific demographic groups.
Today's patient is also an involved patient so there exists a need for information about the causes and treatments of illness as well as the resources for obtaining additional information and coping with the emotional and logistical problems illness brings. Today's consumer is tech-savvy and demands speed, convenience and ease-of-use in the consumer's daily activities. Accordingly, there remains a need for a system that can provide health and safety information on-the-go, in a portable manner, and be effectively integrated with the consumer's other technology products.
In addition to requiring convenience, the consumer can only succeed in achieving a healthier lifestyle when the consumer is able to track the consumer's personal progress toward health goals. As the number of people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity rises, there is an ever-increasing need for a system and procedure to store the individual's history of blood glucose levels, body fat, salt intake, and the like. Likewise, individuals need to track if they are making progress towards personal goals such as weight loss, lowered cholesterol, and increased bone mass.
As the population continues to age, the ability to track medications, dosages, contra-indications to medications, and refill expiration is an ever-increasing requirement. There is a need for children of the elderly to be able to monitor their parents' compliance with medication regimes, as dementia and ill-health begin to affect their parents' mental abilities. There is also a need for a system which will alert the patient, or a concerned relative, if a potentially dangerous medical condition exists.
With the increasing bureaucratization of health care, patients need assistance when interfacing with the insurance community. There is a need for a system which will help patients complete insurance forms correctly, make correct decisions regarding insurance, and understand how to proceed with an insurance claim. There is a general need to supply a two-way contact process for patients regarding today's complex health care issues.
There is also a need to better understand how the general public deals with health and safety improvement and why attempts at living a healthy lifestyle are often unsuccessful. Toward this end, a system for recording and summarizing the individual's efforts toward achieving a health benefit is necessary. Presently, there is no single system or method which provides the above-mentioned needs in a manner which the public will realistically embrace.